TWS Student Chapter BioBlitz's Boletim

We noticed we failed to post the July awards on here along with when our email goes out, so here are the updates for the past two months! We have already learned a lot from this year's BioBlitz, and your feedback has been appreciated. We hope that next year we can take what we have learned and make the BioBlitz much smoother! Please note that monthly species have been calculated as new species each month. Until now, we did not know how to calculate this statistic aside from keeping track of monthly tallies. We will continue to use this method this year, but anticipate changing it next year to more accurately represent total monthly species counts!

Without further ado, here are the winners!

JULY
Student Chapter
Most research-grad observations: Texas A&M University
Most species: WSU Wildlife Society

Individual
Most research-grade observations: 1622 observations, Ethan Maitra (astrobirder)
Most species: 380 species, Ethan Maitra (astrobirder)

AUGUST
Student Chapter
Most research-grad observations: WSU Wildlife Society
Most species: WSU Wildlife Society

Individual
Most research-grade observations: 1339 observations, Ethan Maitra (astrobirder)
Most species: 268 new species, Ethan Maitra (astrobirder)

We have one more month to go.....who is going to end up on top!? Keep in mind, we will have both an overall winner and a September winner at the end of the month, so get out exploring!

The June BioBlitz Award results are in!

Student Chapter
Most research-grade observations: Texas A&M University
Most species: TWS George Mason University

Individual
Most research-grade observations: 1710 observations , Cody Stricker (codycs)
Most species: 688 species, Cody Stricker (codycs)

Congratulations!! We will be in touch with the award winners soon. Don’t forget, the competition has really only just begun!

We've made one slight change to our award categories. We have removed most identifications for our monthly awards because we are only able to easily track identifications by individual members as a total number of identifications made throughout the competition. We apologize for any inconvenience! Please also note that Student Chapter award categories will be based on the average observations per member of your team (a ratio of the number of observers in your Student Chapter to total research grade observations/species). So, for instance, if your Student Chapter has 100 research grade observations and you have 20 members, your ratio score would be 100/20 = 5.0.

MONTHLY AWARDS (counts restart on a monthly basis)
Student Chapter:
1) Most research grade observations
2) Most species

Individual Members:
1) Most research grade observations
2) Most species

OVERALL COMPETITION AWARDS (total 4-month count)
Student Chapter:
1) Most research grade observations
2) Most species

Individual Members:
1) Most identifications
2) Most research grade observations
3) Most species

As scientists, we strive to produce quality work, and collect data that can be used for research purposed. Thus, we have created our award categories to encourage students to collect data that will improve upon citizen-science projects such as iNaturalist. We will be announcing at the end of each month the top Student Chapter and individual in each of the following categories:

Student Chapter:
1) Most identifications
2) Most research grade observations
3) Most species

Individual Members:
1) Most identifications
2) Most research grade observations
3) Most species